It`s Easy To Get Hooked On Fish Fry

Every corner diner, every supper club worth the vinyl on their booths, puts their fish on the line. Friday in Wisconsin means fish fry.

It`s easy to get hooked on this tradition. The meal is a bibs-on affair, sold at prices that take wallets back at least a decade.

Though variations exist, the basic fish fry consists of perch or cod-lightly breaded and fried-slaw, fries and potato salad served family or buffet-style. Add a few icy brews, lots of bread and tartar sauce.

The fish fry at Turner Hall in Milwaukee is a good example of the genre. It is also a favorite. It combines the boisterous, good fun of a Munich beer hall with honest fare. Everytime the car eases into the Friday night traffic on Int. Hwy. 94, the memory of my last Turner fish fry fuels the appetite and somehow calms the nerves.

Turner Hall comes close in ambience to a Bavarian beer hall. It is noisy and churchlike. Its vaulted ceilings do nothing to absorb the clang of dishes and laughter. Fading sunlight seeps through stained glass windows. Beer steins are showcased as are athletic trophies and diplomas.

Turners, a German sports organization heralding gymnastics, owns the building and maintains an active membership.

Several doors from the dining room is one of the gymnasiums where youthful members tumble and flip, making it look easy and leaving you feeling old. Their European-born predecessors, commemorated in starched poses on black and white film, are framed on the dining room walls.

Families with strollers, members of softball teams, couples between work and home are among those who pay $5.95 for the all-you-can-eat special. Though the arrangement of tables does nothing to engender romance, proximity helps, especially if the catsup bottle runs low or you`re down to the last napkin in the stack.

Expect to wait for a table. Give your name to the hostess, proceed to the bar and join the bodies, usually two people deep. On an average Friday evening, cooks crank out between 700 and 800 dinners.

When the dining room swells to capacity, there`s an urge to break out into a drinking song or stick your fingers in your ears. Between the juke box and loudspeaker blaring the name of the next table occupant, the din borders on touchdown crazy.

But for the price, quality, caring service and bounty of its buffet, Friday night fish fry at Turner Hall adds one more feather to Wisconsin`s culinary cap.